Hunt the Bismarck

by Angus Konstam

  On the Hood, the full extent of the catastrophe wasn’t readily apparent. Midshipman (Mid.) William Dundas recalled: ‘It was the fifth salvo that really did for us. Wreckage began raining down again, and I saw a mass of brown smoke drifting to leeward on the port side.’17 The whole ship seemed to shake, and then she began listing to starboard. On the bridge, the first indication that something was seriously wrong came with that huge judder. Then, the helmsman reported that the steering had gone. Captain Kerr ordered the ship switch to emergency steering – at that moment nobody on the bridge had any idea the stern of the ship had just been blown away. Hood righted herself for a few seconds, and then began listing rapidly to port. It soon became clear that the battlecruiser had suffered some kind of mortal blow. Without any order to abandon ship, the bridge crew began filing out of the starboard door, on to the surrounding platform. Ted Briggs recalled how orderly this was. He even remembered one officer stopping to let him through first.

  As Briggs glanced back, he saw V. Adm. Holland sitting calmly in his chair in the middle of the bridge, with Captain Kerr standing beside him, struggling to remain upright as the ship kept heeling over.18 In the old tradition of the service, both officers were going to go down with their ship. Mid. Dundas found himself unable to reach the door, thanks to the sharply sloping deck. So, he kicked out a window on the starboard side of the bridge, until there was enough space to squeeze through. Briggs found the angle was now so steep that he was actually walking down the side of the bridge, towards the water. As he went he stripped off everything that might encumber him. Further aft, Able Seaman Robert Tilburn was sheltering on the boat deck, and he felt the huge shaking too. Then, bits of debris and body parts began falling around him. Two of his shipmates were ripped apart by shrapnel as he watched. He thought he was going to be sick, so he moved over to the starboard rail, where he narrowly missed being hit by the falling debris as he slid down on to the focsle, and then into the water.

  On the Bismarck, Müllenheim-Rechberg heard someone yell out ‘She’s blowing up!’19 He peered through the port gun director, where the magnification gave him a perfect view of the spectacle:

  At first the Hood was nowhere to be seen; in her place was a colossal pillar of black smoke reaching into the sky. Gradually, at the foot of the pillar, I made out the bow of the battlecruiser projecting upwards at an angle, a sure sign that she had broken in two. Then I saw something I could hardly believe: a flash of orange, coming from her forward guns. Although her fighting days had ended, the Hood was firing a last salvo. I felt great respect for these men over there.

  On Bismarck’s bridge, the navigating officer Korvettenkapitän (Lt Commander) Neuendorff saw it too. ‘Suddenly, the Hood split in two, and thousands of tons of steel were hurled into the air. More than a thousand men died. The fireball that developed where the Hood still was seemed near enough to touch… Every nerve of my body felt the pressure of the explosions.’20

  On the Prince of Wales, a stunned Captain Leach ordered an immediate turn to starboard, to avoid colliding with the remains of the battlecruiser.21 He watched as the Hood’s severed stern rose up out of the water and hung there for a few seconds. At that moment, the Bismarck’s sixth salvo landed just astern of the wreckage. Then Leach looked forwards and saw that the front two-thirds of the Hood was still moving forwards through the water, propelled by sheer momentum. Then, as water flooded into her broken hull the bows began rising out of the water, until both ends of the dying ship formed a giant ‘V’ shape. Next, they slipped under the oil-covered waves and disappeared, leaving nothing but a scattering of wreckage to mark the spot. Bobbing in the water were Briggs, Dundas and Tilburn. All three of them found themselves being pulled under, but somehow had managed to wrench themselves free, and so lived to tell the tale. Some 1,415 of their shipmates weren’t so lucky. Everyone else went down with their ship.

  Tilburn looked back and caught a final glimpse of the Hood: ‘Just the bows were stuck out of the water, practically vertical, and then she slid under. The sea was bubbling and hissing as pockets of air broke the surface, and patches of oil were burning.’22 Beneath them, the lucky ones had been incinerated in an instant, as the great fireball ripped through their ship, or were torn apart by the explosion. Others were crushed by tumbling machinery or shells, while hundreds more found themselves trapped in the blackness of a compartment or turret or magazine, as the icy water slowly poured in. On the Prince of Wales, Sick Berth Attendant Sam Woods summed up the feeling of his own shipmates as he watched Hood go down: ‘All that remained was a huge pall of smoke, where just a few moments earlier had sailed the pride of the Royal Navy.’ Many of them were utterly stunned, and couldn’t believe what had just happened.

  The final act

  On board the Norfolk, Wake-Walker ordered that news of the tragedy be immediately sent to the Admiralty in London, and to Tovey on board the King George V. 23 Word also reached Holland’s four destroyers, sent off on a fruitless search for the enemy earlier that morning. Three hours later they would be combing the spot, looking for survivors. The only ones they found there were Briggs, Dundas and Tilburn. Meanwhile, as the Prince of Wales raced past the scene of the calamity, she found herself under fire from both German ships. The battle, it seemed, was far from over. At 06.01, the Prinz Eugen fired two salvos at the British battleship – her tenth and 11th of the battle – but no hits were scored. The gunnery team on the Bismarck switched targets to the Prince of Wales – a fairly simple matter as she was now passing the place where the Hood was going down.24 She fired her seventh salvo at 06.01, at a range of 16,400 yards (8.1 miles). None of her shells hit the Prince of Wales, nor did the next two salvos fired from the Prinz Eugen. Meanwhile, the British ship was fighting back as best she could.

  The turn to starboard to avoid the wreckage meant that ‘Y’ turret could no longer bear on the Bismarck. Still, Prince of Wales fired three salvos in quick succession – her 14th, 15th and 16th – but all three fell short. It was almost as if the gun directors were still reeling from the shock of what they’d just witnessed and it was affecting their aim. Then, at 06.02, Bismarck fired her eighth salvo. The range was now down to 15,300 yards (7.5 miles). The 15in. shells were in the air for 23 seconds before they fell around the Prince of Wales – a perfect straddle. At that range, the shells fell at an angle of about 9 degrees, and one of them struck the compass platform of the British ship. It passed through it without exploding and continued on to splash into the sea off the battleship’s port beam. However, the sheer impact of the hit killed or wounded virtually everyone on the crowded bridge.

  Sick Berth Attendant Woods was just climbing up the ladder into the compass platform when the shell struck:

  Suddenly there was a blinding flash in front of my eyes, and I felt enveloped in a pocket of searing heat. I was sucked up that ladder and seemed to float across the bridge area. After floating for what seemed an age, I finally came to rest on the deck amidst a shambles of torn steel fixtures, collapsed searchlights and human bodies. As I regained my senses the sweet smell of burnt flesh mingled with the acrid stench of high explosives.25

  The compass platform resembled a charnel house, or rather it did when the acrid grey smoke cleared. With the exception of Captain Leach, the chief yeoman and Woods, everybody was either killed or wounded. In the compartment below, a lieutenant recording the ship’s course changes during the battle saw blood dripping out of the bridge voice pipe to the bridge, and splattering on his plotting table.

  Woods set to work, doing what he could for his injured shipmates. Some were past help, but others needed his skills. In all, some 13 officers and men were killed, and another nine wounded. Meanwhile, Captain Leach had been momentarily stunned, but he pulled himself together and got on with the job of assessing the damage to his ship. During that time the Prinz Eugen had been firing rapidly – six salvos in three minutes, her tenth to 15th, at ranges of between 16,000 and 15,000 yards (7.9 and 7.4 miles). None of them hit. Up above the compa
ss platform, the Prince of Wales’ gunnery direction officer Lt Cdr Colin McMullen had been unaware of the carnage below, although while peering through his binoculars he saw white smoke rising across the lens.26 So, he kept on firing, using his five workable forward guns, and at 06.02 he fired two more salvos – his 17th and 18th – both aimed at the Bismarck. Both fell short. However, it showed that Prince of Wales was still in the fight.

  This was about to change. Having recovered from his close brush with death, Captain Leach quickly realised that if the duel continued, and at the current range of a little over 14,175 yards (7 miles), Bismarck and Prince Eugen would pound the Prince of Wales mercilessly, and with his malfunctioning guns and inexperienced crew he had little chance of winning the fight. Instead, he would be placing his ship and her crew in danger. He could break off the action on his own accord, but this ran contrary to the spirit of the service. With V. Adm. Holland dead, the next most senior commander in the area was R. Adm. Wake-Walker. Leach therefore sent an urgent signal to Norfolk, asking permission to disengage. The cruiser commander had watched Hood explode and realised that the odds against Leach had now shortened dramatically, so he immediately agreed. All Leach had to do now was to extricate his battleship from the fight.

  At 06.03 he ordered the Prince of Wales to turn hard to port, and to come round on to a new course of 160°.27 The battleship also made smoke, in an attempt to hide herself from the enemy gunners. Just before Prince of Wales began her turn, the Bismarck fired her ninth salvo, and once more it straddled the British ship. One 15in. shell struck her on her starboard side amidships, below the waterline. The shell didn’t explode and bounced off the battleship’s armoured belt. However, it sprung her armour and caused some flooding. Another shell landed at the top of her forward superstructure, again on the starboard side, and put the director for the secondary guns out of action. It also silenced the battleship’s search radar. At the same time, Prinz Eugen fired two salvos, her 16th and 17th, and the second of these scored a hit – her first on the Prince of Wales. The shell struck the battleship’s starboard quarter, just above the rudder, but below the waterline. Again, the shell didn’t do any real damage.

  Then, as Prince of Wales was turning, a lookout on Prinz Eugen yelled out that he’d spotted torpedoes in the water, heading towards them. Captain Brinkmann passed the report to Kapitän Lindemann and then turned away to starboard. A few seconds later, Bismarck did the same, until both ships were steering 270°. It was later claimed that these torpedoes might have been fired off by the Hood moments before she blew up.28 She carried two pairs of submerged 21in. torpedo tubes, located on each beam beneath the focsle. These Mark IV torpedoes had a maximum range of 13,500 yards (6.7 miles), running at 25 knots. That meant that just before the Hood sank, the closest enemy ship, the Prinz Eugen, was roughly 16,000 yards (7.9 miles) away, and therefore out of range. If they were launched, the command would have come from the torpedo control position on the battlecruiser’s bridge. It seems highly unlikely this order was ever given. Perhaps the German lookout was imagining things. Whatever the case, that turn away, however, probably saved the Prince of Wales.

  As this little drama was being played out the two German ships fired again, and despite their own course change and that of the enemy, both ships scored hits. The Bismarck’s tenth salvo was fired at a range of just under 17,000 yards (8.5 miles). It was another straddle, but this time only one shell struck her target, landing amidships, just astern of the after funnel.29 Although this in itself wasn’t serious, shrapnel riddled the funnel as well as the Supermarine Walrus seaplane that was perched in front of it on its catapult. This was now seen as a major fire risk, and so the floatplane was ditched over the port side before its fuel tanks could catch fire. The blast also wrecked a crane serving the battleship’s boat deck. At the same time, 06.03, Prinz Eugen managed to straddle the Prince of Wales with her 18th salvo, and scored two hits, one on her port side, below ‘Y’ turret, but the shell didn’t penetrate the armoured belt.

  The second one could have been devastating since it hit a ready-use ammunition storage bin serving one of the battleship’s secondary guns. Fortunately for the battleship’s crew it failed to explode, and the live shell was eventually rolled over the ship’s side. Meanwhile, Prince of Wales was firing back. By now the arc of fire of the forward guns was masked by the ship’s superstructure, and so only ‘Y’ turret could bear. The salvo was aimed at Bismarck, but it fell short. Immediately, the ammunition hoists for three of the turret’s four barrels broke down, leaving the turret with only one working gun. So, the 20th and 21st salvos, fired over the next minute, both consisted of just a single 14in. shell. Both of these fell short, too.

  By now, the range was increasing, thanks to Prince of Wales’ turn away and the starboard turn by the two Germans ships to avoid the imagined torpedo spread; by 06.05, when Bismarck fired her 11th salvo, the range had increased to 18,300 yards (9 miles). All eight shells missed the British ship, as too did the Prinz Eugen’s 19th salvo. By that stage, the smoke generated by the Prince of Wales had made her hard to target. After firing these last salvos, Lütjens therefore ordered another course change for both ships, a 50-degree alteration to port to come round to the force’s old bearing of 220°. Then, at 06.09, the German fleet commander ordered both ships to cease fire, as the chances of scoring more hits on the Prince of Wales were diminishing rapidly.30 From its opening shots, this dramatic sea battle had lasted just 17 minutes. In that time, it cost the lives of almost 1,500 men. The Royal Navy had lost its most prestigious capital ship, and its latest battleship had also been outfought by its German rival.

  Admiral Lütjens had every right to feel pleased with the outcome. After all, he’d won a spectacular victory. More importantly, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were now at large in the North Atlantic. The Bismarck had been hit, though, and while none of the three 14in. shells from the enemy battleship had appeared to cause any serious damage, the fleet commander had to wait until the ship was fully inspected. Meanwhile, he continued on to the south, followed a mile astern by the Prinz Eugen. Some 13 miles away, Wake-Walker’s two cruisers were still following the German ships. However, despite Norfolk firing a single salvo at Bismarck at 06.02, at a range of 21,800 yards (10.8 miles), she had taken no active part in the battle. Even this salvo was fired in an attempt to distract the German gunners, who were busy pounding the Prince of Wales. The four-shell salvo fell short, and the two British cruisers took no further part in the battle.

  Wake-Walker was, nevertheless, still the senior naval officer, and as the minutes ticked by it became clear that he’d made the right decision in allowing Captain Leach to break off the action. As the Prince of Wales had limped out of range of the Germans, Leach sent Wake-Walker an assessment of the battleship’s fighting potential. The report was grim: of her ten main guns, only three were still in operation. All the others had broken down in one way or another. Also, ‘Y’ turret could no longer rotate, due to an electrical fault. She had taken almost 400 tons of sea water in her stern compartments, and while this had been contained, it still had to be pumped out. Her bridge was a shambles, her gunnery director and search radar disabled, and her aircraft had been lost. Finally, her speed was now reduced to just 27 knots. Wake-Walker passed a summary of the report on to the Admiralty.31 They, however, were still reeling from Wake-Walker’s earlier brief signal, sent at 06.02. It had simply read: ‘Hood has blown up.’

  Chapter 11

  Breakout into the Atlantic

  A change of plan

  The terse signal ‘Hood has blown up’ came as a body blow.1 Prime Minister Winston Churchill was told the news when he woke that morning, and he later said that for him, it was one of the most traumatic moments of the war. The rest of the British public agreed. While Wake-Walker had marked the news ‘Secret’, an event like that couldn’t be kept quiet, and that afternoon the loss was reported by the BBC radio. The whole nation was shocked. Just as a generation later people remembered where they
were when President Kennedy was shot, when the news broke that May afternoon almost everyone in Britain paused in shock. The same was true when news reached the ships at sea, many of whose crews had friends or relatives on board the ‘Mighty Hood’, or had served in her. For two decades she had been the very symbol of British naval pride. Now she was gone – ripped apart in a matter of moments. Soon the news travelled around the globe, picked up by news agencies, and it was the turn of the rest of the world to feel stunned – or jubilant.

  Meanwhile, Wake-Walker ordered the Prince of Wales to head south, towards the rest of Tovey’s Home Fleet.2 His cruisers, however, still had a job to do. He had to continue shadowing the Bismarck, so that Admiral Tovey had a chance to intercept her. Perhaps King George V and Repulse would have more luck than Hood and Prince of Wales. He wasn’t able to stop to search for survivors, but the Norfolk’s navigator sent the destroyers to the position where Hood went down, while the two British cruisers raced on past, keeping the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen in range of their radar. Also, the Short Sunderland was still in the area, as was a Hudson search plane, and both aircraft helped the destroyers reach the right spot.

  The destroyer Electra was first on the scene, finding patches of oil and debris on the water.3 There were also a handful of Carley floats, and three of them had survivors on them – Briggs, Dundas and Tilburn. They had tried to hold their floats together before the cold got to them and they gave up the attempt. They were taken on board Electra and given blankets and tea while the destroyers continued their fruitless search for other survivors. Briggs said he couldn’t explain why he and his two companions had survived and more than 1,400 of their shipmates had not. Shortly after 09.00, the destroyers gave up the search and headed towards Hvalfjord. Meanwhile, almost 100 miles to the south, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were heading south into the Atlantic.